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Wednesday, 11 July 2012

Steven Hall Interview

What were your inspirations when growing up?

I was always lost inside some story or other. I was a huge
Star Wars fan as a kid. And Transformers. And Zoids. And Doctor Who, of course.
And there were books. Lots and lots of books. I’ve always loved fictional
worlds - the idea of there being some other place, or some other way of seeing
things, has always been an obsession.

Which writers do you particularly admire?

Modern writers like Paul Auster and B.S. Johnson, although
in the last few years I’ve been reading Melville and Dickens too. I read Moby
Dick over and over. It’s astonishingly good.

Were you a Doctor
Who fan in your youth?

Oh yes, although I liked the Daleks much more than the
Doctor. A Dalek fan rather than a Who fan, I suppose. I could draw a pretty
decent Dalek by the time I was six or seven. My room was covered in them. I’d
love to do a Dalek story. I have a couple mapped out that I’d love to get out
into the world in some shape or form one day.

Photographers assistant, private detective and fine art
student…that’s an impressive and diverse career! What encouraged you to turn to
writing?

I emailed their website and asked. It was the year after The Raw Shark Texts came out and I sent
a copy of the book to Paul Wilson, who was running the Big Finish site at the
time. He liked the book and we became good friends. From then on, Paul
basically pestered Big Finish to give me a shot. I think Alan Barnes dropped me
a line just to shut him up. Alan’s mail said something like: “Alright, pitch me
a 25 minute story for the Doctor and two companions. No returning monsters. No
promises.” I sent him a rough outline for The Word Lord and the rest is
history.

Was this your first audio script and how do you find writing
for audio differs from writing a novel?

It was. Audio is liberating in many ways, precisely because
the form is so defined. Character dialogue and sound are the only tools
available. I like the purity of that.

Did you find the reduced length of the story hampered the
chance of a denser narrative?

Not at all. I started by thinking about the kind of story
that could be told well in 25 minutes. The Word Lord was always devised for
that timeframe, although once I was in the story I did wish I could’ve had some
more time with Nobody. He seemed like he had lots more to give.

Were you happy with the finished result?

Very. Ken Bentley directed and all Ken’s work is fantastic.
Thankfully, he’s as obsessive about getting things right as I am!

A Death in the Family

Can you talk us through the construction of such a mind
bogglingly complicated script? Did the story start with the conclusion and you
worked your way towards that or did you set this out in a more progressive,
linear way where the ending was a natural conclusion to what had come before?

Alan mailed me in 2009 asking if I’d be interested in
writing a story dealing with the fallout from what would become Project
Destiny, and I jumped at the chance. I could see so many opportunities for
great character moments there. The very first thing I asked was – can I have
Evelyn? She was a must. Once I got the okay to include her, I immersed myself
in the back catalogue and listened to everything with those characters. I came
up with a long list of things I was interested in addressing, and a long list of
opportunities that the previous stories provided. It was an exciting time. I
was so excited by the scale of what I was trying to do. And scared by it too.
Around the time I wrote the outline, I told John Dorney that I was planning to
write a death scene for Evelyn. I remember he looked at me like I’d told him I
was planning to walk out in front of a bus. She’s such a popular character, I
think he was worried for my safety.

I’m so grateful that Big Finish had so much faith in me.
They let me run with so much – can I write a death scene for Evelyn? Yes. Can I
write the Doctor’s death? Yes. They trusted me with all this stuff. I remember
thinking that we were either going to come out with something really
interesting, or that my name was going to be unspeakable in the same sentence
as Doctor Who, pretty much forever.

As far as the story structure goes, the big question was –
is there a way to genuinely kill the Doctor, so that we truly feel he’s gone,
and then to bring him back without it seeming like a cheap trick, or without
cheapening the threat of death in the stories that would follow? Once I
realised that Nobody No-One had the power to do all that, he was added to the
mix too. From there it was about building a structure that could support
everything I wanted to do – the action, the character work, and the various
battles of words!

How many drafts did
the story have to go through before you were satisfied?

I think I finally signed off on draft 6. It was a lot.

Was the original outline very different from the story that
was ultimately produced?

No, not very different. The outline was pretty comprehensive
(and long!). The response to it from Alan was something like: “I… think I love
it, but my brain has just melted.” He said he needed to run it past Nick Briggs
before he could commission something so ambitious. I think everyone was aware
that was I was proposing had the potential to go very, very wrong. But as I
say, Nick, Alan, David - they all put a lot of trust in me and let me run with
the story I wanted to tell.

Picking up the pieces from Project Destiny gave a you a
great starting point as far as the characters were concerned – was there much
conversation with the other writers in this trilogy in order to make sure that
the three stories flowed from one to the other?

I got in touch with Mark Wright and Cavan Scott who were
writing Project Destiny, and who had also created some of the most important
moments in the whole Hex/Cassie narrative. I wanted to be able to link in
directly with what they were doing on Destiny, and I also I wanted them to be
happy with what I planned to do with a lot of the elements they’d set in motion
years earlier. It was important to me to be respectful to what they’d done.
Mark and Cav both read early drafts and thankfully they were really supportive
of the things I wanted to do. It was great to have their feedback and their
blessing.

I tried, but wasn’t able to get in touch with the guy who
wrote the story after A Death in the
Family. I think maybe BF were keen to have something a little more
standalone for the third part of the trilogy after what we were doing with our
episodes. I still wish I could’ve given him a heads-up though!

Did you enjoy writing for the seventh Doctor? What do you
think his greatest strengths are?

I loved writing for him. For me, he’s the most multi-layered
of all the Doctors. In many ways he’s the most flawed, which on the one hand
makes him feel the most human and relatable, but on the other hand, the nature
of those flaws set him very much apart from normal people. He’s a dangerous
man. Of all of them, he’s the one that you never quite know what he’s going to
do, and how far he’s willing to go.

You examined his complicated place in the universe at large
in A Death in the Family – what conclusions were you trying to draw? Which
other Doctors would you like to write for and why?

I wasn’t really trying to draw conclusions, just to really
look at the character. I wanted it to feel like we glimpse of some of the
emotional reasoning behind some of the things he does, and then go on to show
that ultimately, you can’t get a fix on him – he won’t let you. I’d love to
write for Chris Eccleston’s Doctor. That would be fantastic.

How do you even begin exploring new angles with Ace, a
character that has been charted thoroughly across several different media?
Where did you want to take her character? What were the greatest differences
between her and Hex?

I think Ace is one of the most complex characters in all of
Doctor Who! I honestly don’t think we’ve seen even half of what’s going on with
that character yet. There’s so much still to say. I wanted to look at what her
life has made her, her priorities and contradictions. As I say, there’s still
so much more to be done with her. Hex is great too. They’re both so human. They
feel like they can both change, for better or worse, in very realistic ways.
That whole team is fantastic. I’d love to return to them one day. There’s so
much more I want to do with them. A lot of things I set up in A Death that I’d like to come back to.

Hex was on a particular journey after the dramatic events of
Project Destiny. Did you find that continuing that story was a hindrance to the
story that you wanted to tell or that it slotted in well?

Not at all, that journey was the story I wanted to tell! All the other characters in that
story are tangled up in that same journey, and in the repercussions of it. I
wanted to add to what came before, and hopefully bring a resolution to some of
those things.

Bringing Hex and
Evelyn together was a stroke of genius, tying up a loose end for both
characters. How did that idea come about?

It was always the
way I wanted to go. Everyone who listens to the stories had wanted it to happen
for years, including me. I think I may even have said ‘can I have Evelyn?’
before I said ‘yes’ to writing the story. There was no way to finish that
journey without her, and it made sense to me that the resolution of this
storyline should be the end of Evelyn’s journey too.

Whose voice came
easier to you out of Ace and Hex?

I got to a point
where I could write a line for one and hear the other answer! I’d done Ace and
Hex before, but I had to listen to a lot of previous plays before I was happy
that I was getting Evelyn right. These things have to be right. It matters.
These characters are like family to a lot of people, me included.

Were you aware that
you were killing off a much-loved companion in Evelyn and did this daunt you at
all when it came to writing the ending?

Yes, and it was
hard. My grandmother became ill just as I began work on the story and died
about three weeks before I finished the final draft, so it was hard for me to
finish writing the play in a lot of ways. A lot of emotion went into Evelyn’s
sections, and I think you can hear that in Maggie’s brilliant performance.

Did you have to listen to some of her old
audio adventures to capture the essence of the character? Are you a fan of the
character and did you always see her dying in such a dignified way?

Yes, I listened to
everything she appeared in. If you do something like this, it has to be right.
I’m a huge fan of the character and I wanted her to have a death that did her
justice - it had to be brave, but also down-to-earth and not at all
melodramatic.

Listening to the
story were you happy with how it was realised? What strengths do you think
director Ken Bentley and musicians Lauren Fox and Richard Yason brought to the
story?

I’m delighted with
how the play was realised. Everyone involved did such a fantastic job. Ken is
wonderful. He has such good dramatic sense, and a great eye for detail. The
music is amazing, isn’t it? I couldn’t believe how perfect it was.

Did you attend the
studio recording to hear your words coming to life?

Yes, I was there. Because
it’s a complicated story and it ties up so many things that came before, I felt
it was important that I was on hand to answer questions and be able to explain
elements of the story if anyone got lost. No one did, of course! It was a
pleasure to work with such talented people.

What was your
inspiration for the Word Lord?

I wanted to create
an enemy for the Doctor who would put him in the same position his enemies usually find themselves in.
Nobody No-One is very smart, very funny and outmatches pretty much everyone he
faces. He’s also very Doctorish. I wanted someone who could out-Doctor the
Doctor. The Doctor’s worst nightmare, basically.

Do you think we
might ever have a chance to meet All who is referenced at the climax?

I have All’s powers
worked out, just in case. And not just All’s either. Nobody’s old Type 45
CORDIS is quite a relic. A certain, newer, Type 8687 CORDIS really shows up its
faults... And then there’s the whole
tragedy of the Word Lords and what happened to them that I’d love to deal with
one day. It might make people see Nobody in a slightly different light. Then
again, maybe not.

Will you be writing
for Big Finish again?

I’d love to. One
day. There’s a lot I’d still like to do. I’m snowed under for the foreseeable,
but I’d love to come back down the line.

Have you been
overwhelmed by the fantastic reaction the play has received?

Yes! I still am!

Can you tell us
about your first novel, The Raw Shark Texts? What is the central plot and who
are the main characters?

The Raw Shark Texts is a book about a man who wakes up with no
idea who he is. A doctor tells him that his girlfriend died in an accident on
holiday, and that he developed a progressive memory loss due to grief and
stress. Before long though, he starts to suspect that something more sinister
is happening and that something is hunting him for his memories...

Can you explain the
eclectic use of ‘negatives’ and ‘un-chapters’, text images, fragments and
letters in the novel?

The book is about
identity and loss, and there are hidden additional sections of the novel that
exist outside its pages, some online and some in the real world. Some have been
found by readers, some are still out there, and some are lost for good.

What was the public
reaction to the novel?

It was a crazy time.
The book has been published around the world and translated into 30 languages.
It did well and people are still reading it, which is the main thing.

Lots of things, I
hope. There will be the second novel, and then I’m adapting one of my short
stories into an iPad film, and developing a new storytelling system to go along
with that. I’m doing something with the National Theatre too. And then there
are a couple of top secret things that have non-disclosure agreements attached,
so I can’t even hint at those! But Book Two, first and foremost. That’s what
eats up all my waking hours now.